


golden bands and gloves

by TrashcanWithSprinkles



Series: golden bands and gloves [1]
Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Happy Ending, Longing, M/M, Secret Relationship, War, accidentally tho, also sapnap is a good friend who will tease dream to hell and back, and their friends are left like wait WHAT, basically there's a rebelion against the kingdom and dream and techno join it, but they join different sides of the operation, i have no idea what this is either, listen i just like it when two op characters turn out to be a badass couple all along, melancholic, mentioned bad and skeppy, no beta we die like men, soft, that's it that's the better summary of this fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:08:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27103225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrashcanWithSprinkles/pseuds/TrashcanWithSprinkles
Summary: In which there's a war, and Dream is on one side of it.
Relationships: Clay | Dream/Dave | Technoblade
Series: golden bands and gloves [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2004043
Comments: 94
Kudos: 1461





	golden bands and gloves

**Author's Note:**

> you know the jig by now, just take this

Sturdy leather gloves had proven to be quite handy when it came to hiding things underneath them. Scars. Sweating, which therefore hid effort and nerves. And the golden band around Dream's ring finger, warm with the heartbeat of the man who'd slid it into place many a year ago.

Few clothing choices were questioned during wars like this one, and you wouldn't catch anyone sparing a second glance at a swordsman's leather gloves.

Dream led one side of the war effort, as the people around him jokingly called it. He didn't even  _ lead _ , but for a unified group with several figureheads it was easy to call the one to rally and inspire them as such. He was one of the best fighters in the group, and the star of the scouting team on which everyone's lives pretty much depended. 

It was a grueling task, truly. And it was even worse not having his beloved by his side, to comfort him when things got too hard. He did have his heartbeat, as he did his' – so long as his magic band warmed him, he would know for a fact the other was still alive and breathing and fighting.

But it was hard, still.

Dream led what the Resistance liked to call 'The Future'. It was nothing more than the whole of refugees they'd been picking up from town to town, fleeing battlefields and early graveyards as they stalled. Bid their time. Gathered resources. 

Survived.

That was his role in the Resistance. He was to survive, along with the refugees and the citizens and the rest of the capable men and knights and mercenaries tasked with safeguarding them. To hold on tight and strong until the war was over. To persevere, to wait, to stay away from the crossfire so that the second half of the Resistance could go through with their role.

The Resistance had been created and assembled quietly over the years, gathering supporters and forces, biding their time to strike. They were rising against the man sleeping on the golden throne whom they were forced to call a King – the man whose reign had trampled over their grandparent's efforts and lands and bent them all to fit the shape of his so-called Kingdom.

"There's a saying, this one I've heard in my travels," Dream remembered his beloved telling him once, when the Resistance was mere whispers on the streets, mere suggestions by a musician his love held as a friend. "'A kingless country is a country still; but a king without subjects rules naught but hills.'"

"You think this is a good idea?" Dream had asked, far more a statement than a question. He hadn't wanted a war. But--

"I think it's the best shot we have," his love had croaked, tired, and he'd been right.

Because the alternative of remaining under that man's rule was simply not an option, anymore.

And so the whispers turned into burnt letters, small reunions, information passed from one friend to the next. Figureheads were chosen, points of meeting were established, a plan was made,

Half of them would take all innocents and flee, stay by the sidelines. They couldn't leave this kingdom so long as the king lived, so they would have to survive however they could within their borders. Constantly on the move, scrambling for supplies.

But it was their best shot.

The other half of them would gather volunteers, train, and fight. Make their way through the nobles, through the knights, through the entire Kingdom's might – and take it all down.

It was their best shot.

Dream had fled from home. He was a runaway, from a town in the middle of nowhere; grew up fighting in the streets and camping in the woods.

His beloved was the prince of a dead kingdom, ravaged by the empires to the north. He was a vagabond, an entire continent over, who fought with the strength of armies and searched shelter far and wide.

They just wanted someplace to call a home. They had met in this kingdom and traveled together for many years. This could be home, if they could grasp it with their hands and mold it to something better. 

It was their best shot.

They were a bit of a mystery, the both of them. Dream was a mercenary, a sellsword – spent his time walking the streets of the city and hanging out with those he'd come to call friends. His beloved, on the other hand, dedicated himself to their small fields in the outskirts of the city, two hours down the road, a small patch of land they shared with an elderly couple too into their years to see to it themselves.

Dream had friends, quite a lot of them. His love had friends, too, from when he visited the city to sell produce and buy groceries. Yet none of their friends were aware they knew each other. It never came up in conversations, nobody really knew where their house was, nor did they know they lived together. If they crossed paths in town they were just two strangers walking past the other, nobody aware of the bands under their gloves.

Things changed with the war, of course. Friends became ever more precious, and conversation topics ever more scarce. And without him there, Dream had had no choice but to turn to the rowdy bunch he'd come to know and love.

Which was good; for the most part.

"A penny for your thoughts?" his friend had asked, the guy who used to be a city guard – Sapnap.

"Just thinking about the others, that's all," he'd murmured in response. It wasn't an uncommon thing to say, as they had little contact with the other half of the Resistance and many had friends there.

Sapnap had hummed at that, sitting down by his side. "You know anyone there?"

"Well…" he'd drawled on, never sure how or when or if he should ever say it. They've both been secretive – his beloved and him – ever since they met. His love in particular had a troubling past he'd escaped, but that he sometimes feared he hadn't. He'd never wanted to endanger Dream, and as such had opted to keep their relationship private. Dream didn't mind, but he also didn't like lying to his friends, so half-truths had been his main language for the past year. "I mean, Bad's friend is there, right? Skepp- Skappy? Skeppy?"

"Skeppy, yeah," Sapnap had nodded, staring at him, waiting. Dream supposed half-truths weren't as effective when everyone was starving for something to talk about as they waited out the evening. "That's not it, though, is it?" Dream just chuckled. "It isn't!" Sapnap celebrated. 

"You're so annoying- go bother George, he should be out of watch duty," Dream had mused with a tired smile on his face, entertained, even if he knew it wouldn't work.

"Come on! So you  _ do _ know someone-" Sapnap began, halting with a gasp. His smile had twisted into a teasing one, and he'd nudged him with his shoulder. "Is it someone special? A pretty little lady? A nice young man?"

"Shut up," Dream had laughed, soft, but never denied it.

And that was as good as a confirmation, so Sapnap had accidentally started a dumb yet amusing little rumor after that:

Dream has a special someone on the other side.

Dream had taken all the teasing in stride, deciding this was probably the greatest form of entertainment he would get in such a situation.

It was harmless, and he could trust these people. He hoped something similar was happening to the others, so that his love could become comfortable with the mortifying ordeal of being known like this.

While Dream had accepted to join the survival half of the operation, his beloved had opted to fight on the front lines instead.

Dream wouldn't have stopped him, even if he wanted to. Their magic bands meant he'd know, so long as he was alive; and his beloved was simply too great of an asset on the battlefield for him to selfishly decide whether to deploy or not.

He trusted him. With him on one side, and himself on the other, there was no way the Resistance wouldn't come out on top. They would make sure of it, and there was nobody Dream trusted more with fighting than he did him.

If anything, Dream was probably the one worrying him. He didn't want that to be the case, to take his mind away from more important things; but it was undeniable that his side of the operation was the most unpredictable one, oddly enough.

Dream was used to constantly being on the run. To be ready to move out within the second, and knowing any shelter you found one night could be your grave in the morrow.

But he was used to all of this on his own. To go through this alone, because he stopped running around the same time he met his beloved.

Dream came to appreciate the innate trust of collective survival. The camaraderie that came from it, and the friendships that emerged and remained through it. It was a first, and it was a very bittersweet one. Because for every laugh pulled out of him by one of these idiots, he wished he could share three more with his beloved next to him, and all of his friends along with them. He wished he could meet and talk to this Phil ex-knight with his beloved by his side, and he wished he was there to see all the dumb antics George and Sapnap got up to during camp setting. 

One day, he told himself. Once the war was over.

It was a deceivingly difficult thing, surviving. They were quite the large group, and so the main concern wasn't as much finding food and shelter as it was moving about unseen. Avoiding royal scouts trying to track them down and use them all as hostages to force their front lines to surrender. 

This was why they depended so heavily on their own scout team, and why Dream had accidentally garnered the appraisal and admiration of the refugees. He knew this way of life. He knew where to look and what patterns to take note of to predict their enemies' movements. He knew how to travel leaving the least amount of evidence behind. It wasn't easy, with this many people, but it was doable with enough effort and cooperation. 

The nights were long and drawn out, between short guard shifts and fits of restless slumber. Chatter by the campfires as he soaked in the warmth of his friends around him, and silence in his sleep as he caressed the band around his ring finger. They tried to avoid moving at night, even if it was strategically the best thing to do. Dream knew he couldn’t push hundreds of common civilians and refugees to flip their sleeping schedules on their heads so that they may have a slightly safer period of marching.

They moved through the day. Left camp early, ran if they had to, weaved through burnt fields and ghost towns. They would fight if necessary, and treat their wounded when they had any. 

They lost people. A couple of bakers, one farmer. The daughter of the blacksmith, that was a sad evening. Dream tried not to play favorites, but if anyone saw him keeping a particularly steady eye on the elderly couple he lived with (although nobody knew that last bit of information); they simply took it as him looking over the most vulnerable.

Their casualties were in the few, thankfully. They could count them with their hands and repeat their names from memory. A different flower for each one.

Dream doubted the front lines were having the same luck, but there was nothing he could do about it. All they could do was spare moments of silence for those they’d lost every once in a while, when they came across their flowers, when they had a particularly hearty meal.

It wasn’t easy, but they knew;

This was their best shot.

Every once in a long while they would get a short and cold report from the front lines. A couple of sentences on their progress, and a clean list of their casualties. Names, surnames, ages, and whatever it was they knew about them that could help keep their memory. How one was an ex-guard posted at the city gates. How another was a stablehand from the castle itself. How there were weaponsmiths among them, along with simple young teenagers whom nobody had been able to persuade out of joining the front lines.

Their casualties weren't many, either, but they were certainly far more than the refugees' side. As it was to be expected. 

Dream was the one in charge of reading the reports to the others, a task he'd volunteered for seeing as he wouldn't find any tragic news in it. If his beloved had died, he would've known it long before having to read his name in front of the others. 

So he read other names instead, somber, and tried not to pay attention to the faces looking up at him as they slowly crumbled down in tears when they recognized someone. When the name was his town's innkeeper's wife, or the fisher's son, or the painter's friend.

It was never Dream's beloved, but it was always someone else's. 

The reports were scarce at the beginning, one every two weeks; but it gradually grew in pace as the effort continued. They were weekly, at times. Then twice per week. And as the front lines prepared to launch their assault on the capital, the reports came in every odd day until they didn't come at all.

Then the final report came in, one thursday in the evening, as they were scouring for someplace to set up camp.

Dream held it in his hands, and recognized the musician's swift penmanship as he noted the briefness of it.

"'We made it,'" he proclaimed, reading out loud. There was a surprised silence. "'We rendezvous at King's Landing. We won.'"

They didn't sleep that night.

All they did for the following day and a half was walk, stubborn, tired, and beaten; along the coastline towards their siblings in arms.

They arrived first, and set up camp. They pulled their resources, prepared a good meal, and lit up bonfires.

By the time they sighted the front lines march towards them in the horizon, a couple of idiots were already drunk by the seaside.

Dream stood at the front, his friends and comrades standing by him anxious and giddy. They watched the front lines approach, their numbers lowered but walking as proudly as their tired and battered bodies would let them.

At the head of the group walked the man who'd single-handedly carried most of the operation on his shoulders. His winter cape was drenched in blood red, and the sight of him made the people around Dream grow slightly quiet in awe.

That was Technoblade. That was the man who'd appeared out of practically nowhere and whose name and praise had been sung by the first idealists of the Resistance as a beacon of hope for their cause.

They watched him walk at the front, the musician and the ex-knight at his sides, and Dream caught the soft smile on his face.

The 'we did it'. The 'it's over, now'.

_ We made it. We won _ .

And Dream took off running, telescope hastily pushed onto Sapnap's hands, as he crossed the now short distance between the two halves of the Resistance to capture his beloved at the front in a tight hug.

The silence lasted a single beat before everyone was moved to do the same. Wounded fighters and tired refugees crossed from one side to the other to find their loved ones, find their friends. It was a gleeful frenzy of joyful tears and shaky laughter as they revelled in their victory and basked in their freedom. Dream stood still in the eye of the hurricane, half listening to all the happy reunions around them, his face buried in the crook of his beloved's neck. He held on tight, feeling the familiar pair of strong arms wrap around his shoulders, and breathed in the home he'd been missing over these past months.

They were both safe, and even if he had known so all this time, it was never the same. The warmth of the band on his ring finger was in no way enough to replace the warmth of his beloved's tight embrace. 

It was a while until the Resistance, now whole, calmed down a little and took their spots around the camp to eat and rest. As the reunions dissipated and moved from the small field on to the shore by the bonfires, Dream stood still and let all the people walk past them, too caught up in their own happiness to pay him any mind.

Apparently some of his friends had other priorities. 

"Lookie here, Dream!" he heard Sapnap's singsong voice approaching and immediately knew what was about to happen. He simply chuckled quietly and separated to look up at Techno, who gave him a tired smile and a faint nod. Dream had been right, and he couldn't help but feel his chest tighten with joy at that.

"Oh my God, Sapnap, leave him be," he heard George chide in, but the smile on his voice made it evident that he was actually only trying to probe Sapnap into teasing Dream more.

Dream turned to look at his two friends and was met with Sapnap wiggling his eyebrows at him and George looking on amused to the side.

He opened his mouth to speak, but a wolf whistle interrupted him before he could say much of anything. 

"You go, Techno boy!" he heard the musician chime in, and turned along with his beloved to watch as the guy himself and the ex-knight approached as well.

"You didn't tell us you had a special someone on the other side," the knight chuckled, arms crossed, far less teasing and more genuine curiosity and surprise.

"Oh Phil, prepare to get outplayed," Techno deadpanned, amused, reaching for his glove.

Dream caught onto the idea and made quick work of his sturdy leather glove as well.

In odd coordination, they flashed their hands towards their friends and let the golden bands catch the bonfires' light. Dream tried not to burst out laughing on the spot. 

"WHAT," Sapnap nearly yelled, "WHAT??"

"You're  _ married?!" _ George exclaimed, shocked.

"They're married?!" Sapnap repeated, as if only now managing to formulate words. He turned to George. "George! George I've been homie-flirting with a married man this entire time! Why didn't you tell me?!"

"Wh- I didn't know!!"

"Holy shit- wait- wait waitwaitwait-" the musician laughed, out of air, caught completely off-guard. "You're telling me you've been married to the head of the scouting team this entire time?! To Dream?  _ The _ Dream?!"

"Yep," Techno hummed, unfazed. Dream looked away from the other four and pasted his head to his beloved's chest, breaking out in laughter.

"Well, if your rings are magic-bound that would explain why you were always so sure the refugees were safe," he heard Phil comment, intrigued, the least shocked out of everyone.

"All part of the plan, man, I tell you," he felt Techno nod, dead-serious, and Dream's attempts at sobering up failed miserably. 

"Dude, no way," Sapnap insisted, delusional with the impression. "No way! Since- Since  _ when?! _ I mean- I've never seen- I didn't even know you knew The Blade!"

"We've- We've- We've  _ hhhh _ \----" Dream attempted to speak, the air refusing to stay in his lungs. He felt his beloved hold his elbows as he doubled over in laughter. He managed to look up at Sapnap, voice messed up in pitch from his lack of air. "We've been married since before I met you--"

"Shut up!!" Sapnap began laughing, still shocked. "Are you for real?!"

"Sapnap I'm literally- Yes! Yes, I'm- I'm- I can't fucking bre a t he-----" he wheezed. He couldn't recall the last time he'd laughed so hard. 

"But why didn't you tell us?" the musician tried to sober up, halfway through a laughing hiccup. "It would've made it so much easier to believe you about the others being safe."

"Wilbur, I want you to look me in the eye and tell me you would've believed me if I'd ever told you I was actually married to the most sought-after sellsword in the entire Kingdom," Techno deadpanned, the slightest bit petulant.

The only thing he got for an answer was Phil breaking out in laughter and Dream nearly falling on the spot from how lightheaded he was getting from this entire ordeal.

Dream had always appreciated his gloves – they were sturdy and durable and helped keep his hands from getting blisters and cuts and other nasty consequences of swordfighting. They'd helped him keep his band hidden when the Kingdom had become unstable and his beloved's anxiety and fears at the what if's of his past had been too much to put on the line.

As they marched into a new era, one of self-governance and alliances of smaller houses for the interests of them all; Dream didn't doubt he'd continue to need them. He was still a sellsword. He was still one to fight, to settle disputes, to be an arm for the disabled. But not all of his life would be fights, moving forward. His beloved had already prompted that idea well before the war started, and the horrors and the bloodshed had made Dream turn to it as a ray of hope. As a little sapling in the garden he'd been scrambling to keep alive and healthy for all his life.

As it turned out, his beloved had a knack for plants.

So he held his rough hand and let himself feel his own heartbeat on his band, sitting side by side at the bonfire, their friends chattering about. His sword was still strapped to his belt, but it was sheathed. It no longer cut to survive, and he hoped he would one day master cutting to protect.

Another thing his beloved seemed to be good at.

But that was a problem for tomorrow. For when the refugees and civilians would split up to head to their homes and start nations anew. For when they'd help the elderly couple back to the cottage and clean and fix shingles and do magic if needed to revive the crops.

Now Dream just revelled in having his beloved's hand in his', and leaning his head on his shoulder as if they were sitting on their creaky porch watching the sun set and end another day.

Except now there was no tension in his shoulders, and the worries of later were left for the morrow where they would be just a bit more free. A bit more safe. And a bit more calmed.

Because the things they wanted gone were now over, and everything else was free to begin once more. 

Bands clicking together and hands intertwined. 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading <3


End file.
